


Swan Song, by Carver Edlund

by Stargazer1323



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 20:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3147551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stargazer1323/pseuds/Stargazer1323





	1. Chapter 1

_On April 21, 1967, the hundred millionth GM vehicle rolled off the line at the plant in Janesville—a blue two-door Caprice. There was a big ceremony, speeches, the lieutenant governor even showed up._

_Three days later, another car rolled off that same line. No one gave two craps about her. But they should have, because this 1967 Chevrolet Impala would turn out to be the most important car—no, the most important object—in pretty much the whole universe._

_She was first owned by Sal Moriarty, an alcoholic with two ex-wives and three blocked arteries. On weekends, he’d drive around giving Bibles to the poor, “gettin’ folks right for Judgement Day”. That’s what he said. Sam and Dean don’t know any of this, but if they did, I bet they’d smile._

_After Sal died, she ended up at Rainbow Motors, a used-car lot in Lawrence, where a young marine bought her on impulse. That is, after a little advice from a friend. I guess that’s where this story begins._

_And here’s where it ends._

* * * * * * * * * *

Sam is sitting on the hood of the Impala, his back against the windshield, nursing a beer and looking out over Bobby’s car lot. The sky is grey and overcast, and the air smells of dust and motor oil. He takes another sip of beer and savors the sensation of the cool beverage going down his throat, revels in the faint buzz of alcohol along his nerves. This could be his last beer, his last view of this sky, his last moment of true peace in life, and he is determined to savor every second of it. He knows that Bobby and Dean are somewhere inside right now, talking about whether or not to let him say “Yes” to Lucifer. What they don’t know is that it doesn’t really matter what they decide. He’s going to do it anyway. He can’t tell them that, because of what happened the last time he went off and made a decision this monumental on his own, but he knows it’s the only chance of stopping this mess that he started, and he’s sure they’ll see it too, in time. So, for now, he waits, and savors his last moments on Earth, and tries not to think about anything else.

The sound of footsteps on gravel briefly pulls him from his reverie. He doesn’t need to look around to know that it’s Dean. “Hey,” he says, glancing up at his brother as he nears the car. Dean’s face is a solemn mask, giving none of what he’s thinking away as he silently retrieves a beer from the cooler on the ground next to the Impala’s front tire. He leans back against the passenger door, shoulders slumping, and cracks the bottle open, but doesn’t take a drink. Sam lets the silence linger for a moment, then decides it’s up to him to break it this time. “Dean? What’s going on?”

“I’m in,” Dean says, tossing the bottle-cap to the ground in a gesture of finality.

“In with…?”

“The whole ‘up with Satan’ thing. I’m on board.”

Sam isn’t afraid to admit that he’s more than a little surprised. He sits up and swings his legs off the side of the car to get a better look at his brother. “You’re gonna let me say ‘Yes’?”

Dean shakes his head, and Sam’s heart jumps for a second, but he chooses to stay quiet and let Dean have his say, and he’s glad that he does. “No, that’s the thing,” Dean says. “It’s not on me to let you do anything. You’re a grown—well, overgrown—man, and if this is what you want… I’ll back your play.”

Sam resists the urge to glare at Dean for the ‘overgrown’ comment and lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “That’s the last thing I ever thought you’d say.”

“Might be.” Dean’s pensive expression relaxes a little now that he’s had his say. “I’m not gonna lie to you, though. It goes against ever fiber I’ve got. I mean… truth is…” His voice goes hoarse, and Sam goes still, just listening. “You know, watching out for you… it’s kinda been my job, you know? But more than that, it’s… it’s kinda who I am. You’re not a kid any more, Sam, and I can’t keep treating you like one. Maybe I gotta grow up a little, too. I don’t know if we got a snowball’s chance, but… But I do know that if anybody can do it, it’s you.”

Sam blinks back tears and tries not to notice that Dean is doing the same. “Thank you.” He wants to say more, but there’s really nothing to say. Not to that. Not when he knows what he’s asking Dean to sacrifice.

“If this is what you want…” Dean starts to say more, the pauses. “Is this what you want?”

It’s not exactly a last-moment plea for him to change his mind, but Sam is glad of the question and wouldn’t have minded if that were the intention behind it. He doesn’t want to do this; he’s spent months fighting the thought that this might be his destiny, no matter his intentions, but he’s realized lately that intentions do matter. Maybe it was always fated that he would say “Yes” to Lucifer, but if it is the only way to derail the Apocalypse that he inadvertently set in motion, then he will do it on his terms, with his will intact. “I let him out. I gotta put him back in.” It’s as simple as that.

And, to Sam’s relief, that’s all Dean needs to hear. “Okay,” he says, finally taking a swig of his beer. “That’s it, then.” Then, though there’s no sunset to watch because of the clouds, they sit there in silence, gazing out at the horizon until the bottles are empty before going back inside to finalize their plans for ending this, once and for all.

* * * * * * * * * *

The next afternoon, Dean finds himself standing in an empty warehouse, watching as Sam and Cas efficiently drain the blood from two captured demons, bottle it, and carry it out to the Impala. He tries not to think too hard about what Sam is going to do with all that blood as he watches his brother load it into the car’s trunk; just the smell of it lingering in his nostrils makes his stomach churn. Seeing Bobby going over maps and papers in the back of his van is a welcome distraction.

“I still can’t get used to you at eye level,” Dean jokes by way of both greeting and personal distraction as he walks up behind the older man.

Bobby gives him a smile that says he is not being as cute as he thinks he is. “So, was I right?”

“As always, Yoda,” Dean replies. “Two stunt demons inside, just like you said.”

“Did you get it?”

Dean grimaces. “Yeah. All the ‘go juice’ Sammy can drink.”

Bobby watches him watching Sam finish loading the trunk. “You okay?”

It’s a stupid question, but it isn’t the first time someone’s asked him that today, and it probably won’t be the last before this is all over. “Not really,” Dean says, his tone discouraging any further conversation on the matter. “Whaddya got?”

“Not much.” Bobby hands over a couple of newspapers. “These look like omens to you? Cyclone in Florida, temperature drop in Detroit, wildfires in LA…”

“Wait, what about Detroit?”

“Temp’s dropped about twenty degrees, but only in a five-block radius of downtown Motown,” Bobby explains.

“That’s the one,” Dean says with certainty. “Devil’s in Detroit.”

“Really?” Bobby is understandably skeptical. “As far as foreboding goes, it’s a little light in the loafers. You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Dean looks over at Sam, and, for a moment, all he sees is a man who looks like his brother but is definitely not standing in the middle of a garden dressed in a white suit, and a voice that sounds like his own but isn’t, saying, “Heavyweight showdown in Detroit. Sam didn’t make it.” Suddenly, this no longer seems like such a good idea.

He doesn’t want to say so to Sam, but he can’t seem to think about anything else, so they spend the next several hours on the road in relative silence. Some time around midnight, though, the sound of soft snoring fills the car, and when Dean looks in the rearview mirror to discover that the noise is coming from Cas, he can’t help but comment, “Aw, ain’t he a little angel.”

Sam glances over his shoulder at the angel sound asleep in the back seat. “Angels don’t sleep,” he says in a low, worried voice.

The brothers exchange a look as the full implication of the fact that Cas is sleeping settle into their minds. He is probably as close to human as it is possible for an angel to get right now; cut off from Heaven, his mojo almost gone. With the silence broken, and the fear of losing more than just his brother to the coming battle now weighing even heavier on his mind, Dean figures now is a good a time as any to say what he’s been thinking for the last few hours. “Sam, I got a bad feeling about this.”

“Well, you’d be nuts to have a good feeling about it,” Sam agrees with a shrug.

“You know what I mean,” Dean nearly snaps. Sam’s calm acceptance of everything that’s happened over the past day or so is starting to worry him. “Detroit. He always said he’d jump your bones in Detroit, and here we are.”

“Here we are,” Sam murmurs, still sounding way too accepting of this whole mess.

“Maybe this is him rolling out the red carpet, you know?” Dean isn’t shouting, but he’s getting close, wanting Sam to be as worried about this as he is. “Maybe he knows something that we don’t.”

“Dean, I’m sure he knows a buttload we don’t,” Sam says, the hint of nervous laughter in his voice serving to briefly put Dean at ease. “We just gotta hope he doesn’t know about the rings.” There’s silence for a moment as they both contemplate the likelihood of being able to pull something this massive over on Lucifer himself, then Sam takes a deep breath, and Dean braces himself for what he knows is coming next.

“Hey, um… on the subject,” Sam says, trying to keep his voice light and casual and failing, not that Dean would tell him so, “there’s something I gotta talk to you about.”

“What?”

“This thing goes our way, and I… Triple-Lindy into that box… you know I’m not coming back.”

Dean gives his brother a hard look, wondering why it needs to be said out loud. “Yeah, I’m aware.” It’s not like it’s going to be permanent, after all.

“So you gotta promise me something.”

“Okay,” Dean agrees, just hoping to get this conversation over with as quickly as possible. “Yeah, anything.”

“You gotta promise not to try to bring me back.”

“What?” Dean’s blood runs cold. “No! I didn’t sign up for that!”

“Dean…”

“Your Hell is gonna make my tour look like Graceland!” Dean plows right over any objections Sam could possibly voice. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, what he’s asking. “You want me to just sit by and do nothing?”

“Once the Cage is shut, you can’t go poking at it, Dean. It’s too risky!”

“No, no, no, no, no.” All the rational arguments in the world are not going to convince him to let his little brother sign up for an eternity of torture. “As if I’m just gonna let you rot in there?”

“Yeah, you are. You don’t have a choice.”

“You can’t ask me to do this!”

“I’m sorry, Dean. You have to.”

This is an argument he isn’t going to win. Not at the moment, anyway. What’s worse, a part of him—and not a small part—knows Sam is right. Once the Cage is sealed, it has to remain that way, because Lucifer will take any chance he can get to break free and start this whole mess up all over again. It takes a long time for Dean to will himself to open his mouth and admit to any of this, though, and it is only the pleading look in Sam’s eyes that gets him to finally break the silence.

“So then what am I supposed to do?”

The relief in Sam’s face at this statement cuts him like a knife. “You go find Lisa,” he says in a soft voice. “You pray to God she’s dumb enough to take you in, and you… you have barbecues, and go to football games. You go live some normal, apple-pie life, Dean. Promise me.”

The harsh plea in Sam’s voice feels like a betrayal. Dean had gone to Hell himself once to save his brother, and now Sam is not only asking him not to do whatever it takes to save him again, but begging him to give up hunting too? He can’t bring himself to agree to that. Sam seems to know it, and he lets it drop, letting it be enough that he’s made his wishes known.

* * * * * * * * * *

They know they’ve found the right place almost at once, but they still let Bobby go and scout the building at the center of the cold zone before getting too close. He comes back in less than five minutes with the news they had expected. “Demons. At least two dozen of them. You were right—something’s up.”

“More than something,” Dean says. “He’s here; I know it.” He walks past Sam and opens the trunk of the Impala, resolve written in the set of his shoulders and every line of his face, but he doesn’t look at Sam. He hasn’t looked at him or said anything of substance in hours; not since their conversation in the car about what Sam wants him to do once this is all over. Sam knows why he won’t talk, and doesn’t blame him for it; he only hopes that it will sink in before Dean goes and does something stupid.

Dean wouldn’t want him worrying about that right now, though; not when it’s his last chance to come to terms with everyone he’s going to leave behind. So he pushes himself to his feet and turns to Bobby. They stare at one another for a moment, and Sam knows there aren’t words for this kind of goodbye. Finally, Bobby breaks the silence with a hoarse, “I’ll see ya around, kid.”

“See ya around,” Sam echoes. It’s not enough, but nothing will be, not for the man who has been as much of a father to him as his own dad ever was. They hug, then, a long embrace that says everything neither one of them can put into words. When Bobby finally steps away, his eyes are bright with tears.

“He gets in…” he says roughly, “you fight him tooth and nail, you understand? Keep swingin’. Don’t give an inch.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam says, grateful for the last minute advice. As he watches Bobby walk away, he hopes that the man doesn’t blame himself for this, no matter how it turns out. If Bobby hadn’t been able to fight off the demon that possessed him when it was attacking Dean, Sam knows he would have never thought it was possible to fight the Devil from the inside, and he sure Bobby knows that too.

Sam turns away from Bobby to find Cas staring at him. The angel’s feelings for him have been all over the map lately, but he supported Sam’s plan when none of the others would, for which Sam is grateful, and, more importantly, if anyone will be able to keep Dean or Bobby from doing something stupid once Sam is gone, it will be Cas. “Take care of these guys, okay?” he asks Cas as he holds out his hand.

Cas gives him a long, searching look, then says in his typical blunt fashion, “That’s not possible.”

Sam is grateful for the hint of sincere grief in the angel’s voice, but the bleak honesty still makes him wince. “Then humor me,” he says as the angel shakes his hand.

“Oh.” Understanding dawns in Cas’s face. “I’m supposed to lie.” That actually pulls a brief laugh from Sam, and a smile that remains as the angel puffs up his chest and says, in a near-perfect parody of Dean, “Sure. They’ll be fine.”

“Just…” Sam shakes his head, his smile fading. “Just stop talking.” He manages a last weak grin to let the angel know that he appreciates the sentiment, then he lets Cas walk away as well and looks over at his brother. Dean is standing by the Impala, the trunk open, the gallon jugs of blood on display. A nausea that might be born of either disgust or anticipation twists Sam’s stomach at the smell of it as he gets closer. “You mind not watching this?” he asks when he feels Dean’s eyes boring into him. This is what his whole life has been leading up to, and they both know it. Azazel feeding him demon blood in his crib, Ruby hooking him on it to the point of addiction, the manifestation of his psychic powers and being able to exorcize demons with his mind: it was all to prepare him for this moment, to allow him to be able to drink enough demon blood to become Lucifer’s vessel. This is his destiny staring him in the face, and he doesn’t want his brother to watch him surrender to it. Fortunately, Dean doesn’t protest; he just turns and walks away.

It doesn’t take nearly as long to drink four gallons of blood as Sam expects it to. He wishes he could say that it disgusts him to succumb to the addiction again, but as soon as the first drop passes his lips, he can feel it working in him. He can feel the power of it, making him fearless and righteous and all the things he knows he should not be; he can’t help it and he doesn’t fight it. For this plan to work, he has to convince Lucifer that he is ready for this, and the Devil isn’t going to be convinced by anything less than the absolute truth. Fortunately, if the look in Dean’s eyes when he watches Sam close the trunk on the four empty bottles is any guide, the blood won’t let him lie. Sam wants to offer his brother a final reassurance, but there’s nothing he can say that Dean hasn’t already heard and probably wouldn’t believe anyway, so he just strides purposefully past him. “Okay, let’s go.” He knows Dean is following him; they don’t have any other choice now.

The blood singing in his veins is so loud that Sam doesn’t even have to put on a show of eagerness as he marches up to the front of the building and shouts, “All right! We’re here, you sons-of-bitches! Come and get it!” He raises his arms in a mockingly defiant gesture of surrender and watches with a gleam in his eyes as two demons burst out of the front door. They briefly pause upon coming face-to-face with both of the Winchesters, but their hesitation doesn’t last long when, instead of drawing a gun on them, Dean just says, “Hey, guys. Is your father home?”

Less than a minute later, they are being man-handled up the stairs and into a moldering, abandoned apartment. The demons drag them to a halt a dozen paces away from a man standing in front of a window in the main room. Though he can only be seen silhouetted in the light coming in through the grimy windows from the street outside, Sam would recognize him anywhere, and the whispered voice that filters through the room chills him down to his very soul.

“Hey, guys. So nice of you to drop in.”


	2. Chapter 2

_The Impala, of course, has all the things other cars have… and a few things they don’t. But none of that stuff’s important. This is the stuff that’s important: the army man that Sam crammed in the ashtray—it’s still stuck there; the Legos that Dean shoved into the vents—to this day, heat comes on and they can hear ‘em rattle; their initials carved into the floorboards—souvenirs of an afternoon when John left them alone with a new pocketknife and a little too much time on their hands. These are the things that make the car theirs; really theirs. Even when Dean rebuilt her from the ground up, he made sure all these little things stayed, ‘cause it’s the blemishes that make her beautiful._

_The Devil doesn’t know or care what kind of car the boys drive._

* * * * * * * * * *

Lucifer breathes on the window he’s standing in front of, and frost coats the glass. “Sorry if it’s a bit chilly,” he says in a soft yet unapologetic tone of voice. He drags one finger through the ice coating the window, drawing a pitchfork. “Most people think I burn hot. It’s actually quite the opposite.”

“Well, I’ll alert the media,” Dean says, his voice dripping with sarcasm even though he doesn’t know why he’s bothering to say anything, or to put on a brave front in front of this monster. The last time they’d met face-to-face, Dean had shot him in the head. It’s not like they have to dance around each other any more; there’s no hiding why they’ve come.

And it’s apparently not a moment too soon; when Lucifer turns from the window, Dean can’t help his eyes widening in shock. Lucifer’s vessel looks ten times worse than it did the last time they saw him; his skin is paper-white, his face is covered in gaping sores, and it is obviously that only the power of an angel is keeping his body mobile. Lucifer seems unconcerned by his vessel’s condition, though. “Help me understand something, guys,” he says conversationally as he steps away from the window. “I mean, stomping through my front door is… a tad suicidal, don’t you think?”

“We’re not here to fight you,” Sam says, and Dean barely keeps from flinching at the raw power in his brother’s voice. This is not the Sam he knows, and he realizes now that he will probably never see his kind, gentle, conscientious little brother again.

“No? Then why are you…?”

“I want to say ‘yes’.”

“Excuse me?”

Instead of explaining further, Sam just stares down the Devil for a moment, then closes his eyes. Dean doesn’t know if it’s all in his imagination or not, but the air in the room seems to grow heavier, then there is a flash of light, and when Sam opens his eyes again, all of the demons in the room are lying dead on the floor. Lucifer surveys his fallen henchmen in silence, no expression betraying what he might be thinking. “Chock full of Ovaltine, are we?” he asks, looking back at Sam.

“You heard me,” Sam says in reply. “Yes.”

“You’re serious.” He sounds almost surprised.

“Look,” Sam says, exchanging one brief glance with Dean before charging ahead. “Judgement Days’ a runaway train. We get it now. We just want off.”

“Meaning?”

“Deal of the century. I give you a free ride, but when it’s all over, I live, he lives,” Sam inclines his head in Dean’s direction, “you bring our parents back—“

“Okay, can we please drop the telenovela?” Lucifer interrupts Sam’s speech, and Dean knows in that moment that all their posturing hasn’t fooled the Devil for a second. “I know you have the rings, Sam.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Sam tries to make the words come out honestly, but the silence between Lucifer’s declaration and his denial was too long. Nothing they have said since coming in here has been all that convincing, actually, Dean thinks. If there was ever a time to turn tail and run, now would be it. He tries to get Sam’s attention, but Sam just stands there and lets the Devil keep talking.

“The Horsemen’s rings? The magic keys to my Cage? Ring a bell?” Lucifer walks straight up to them, his eyes never leaving Sam. “Come on, Sam. I’ve never lied to you. You could at least pay me the same respect.” He walks past them, putting himself between them and the only exit, and the moment is gone. Sam’s eyes briefly meet Dean’s as they both turn to keep Lucifer in their sights, but there is nothing but determination there still, despite Dean’s silent plea. Sam wants to see what the Devil has to say in response, and Dean has no choice but to let him.

“It’s okay, I’m not mad,” Lucifer says when he has Sam’s attention again. “A wrestling match inside your noggin… I like the idea. Just you and me, one round, no tricks. You win, you jump in the hole. I win… Well, then I win.”

Those words and that smile make Dean flinch. He’s seen them before, in a future that he swore would never come to pass, and he knows now that this is exactly what the Devil wants. There was never going to be any tricking Lucifer into this, there was never going to be any stopping the Apocalypse… the only thing he can hope for now is to get his brother away from here intact.

“What do you say, Sam? A fiddle of gold against your soul says I’m better than you.”

Sam breaks eye contact first. He still won’t look at Dean, but he obviously knows what Dean is trying to tell him without words because he says, “So he knows. Doesn’t change anything.”

“Sam…” Dean chokes out, seeing everything that’s coming and feeling powerless to stop it.

“We don’t have any other choice.”

“No…” Dean pleads, but he doesn’t think his brother even hears him. He tries to move, but before he can, Sam locks eyes with Lucifer again.

“Yes.”

Time stands still, then the room explodes with a blinding white light.

* * * * * * * * * *

When the light dies, Dean is amazed to find himself still standing. He blinks to clear the stars from his vision and looks around the dark room in a panic for a moment before discovering that Sam is lying on the floor, apparently unconscious. Next to him lies the vessel that Lucifer had been inhabiting, clearly dead and already rotting from the inside out. The Devil is inside his brother’s head, the war already being waged. As much as he wants to run to Sam, get him to his feet, and make sure he’s okay, he knows there isn’t time. He has to stick to the plan.

He pulls the device made from the Horsemen’s rings out of his pocket and throws it at the nearest wall. It sticks, he says the incantation, then he watches in amazement as the wall opens up behind the rings and sucks them into an airless void. Over the howling of the sudden wind, he hears a groan from the room behind him and turns just in time to see Sam struggling upright. “Sammy?”

“Dean!”

At the sound of Sam calling his name, Dean rushes to his brother’s side. “Sammy!”

His brother is writhing on the ground, his arms and legs twitching and buckling in the howling gale as he attempts and fails to push himself upright. “I can feel him,” he groans out as Dean grabs him by the shoulders and helps him upright. “Oh, god!” He is in agony, but he seems to be winning the fight.

It takes all of Dean’s strength to help his brother to his feet, and more than he thought he had in him to aim him towards the portal and say the words that the wind rips from his mouth. “You gotta go now! Come on!” He has to be strong, for Sam. “Go now, Sammy,” he says in a voice that sounds too much like his dad’s when Sam turns to give him one last uncertain look. “Now!”

With a nod and a grimace of renewed determination, Sam takes one staggering step towards the portal, and then another. He pauses right in front of the gaping hole, his shoulders heaving, and Dean takes one last look at his brother, expecting him to disappear into the void at any second. Then, as he watches in dawning horror, Sam stands up straight, squares his shoulders, and turns around. Dean can tell as soon as he sees his bother’s face that the battle did not go in their favor. He doesn’t even need to hear the words, but they come out of Sam’s mouth anyway.

“I was just messing with you,” Lucifer says with a smirk. “Sammy’s long gone.”

Dean just stands there in stunned disbelief as the Devil closes the portal with an incantation and pockets the rings. He wants to move, to fight back, to say something, but the next words out of Sam’s mouth leave him paralyzed with guilt and grief. “I told you this would always happen in Detroit.” Then, Sam is gone, and Dean is left standing in an empty room, surrounded by bodies, tears filling his eyes unbidden as he realizes that he just bet the fate of the world on his brother and lost.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sam says “Yes”, and the world dissolves into fire and light. He feels himself collapse, and then he’s fighting for control of his own body against an entity so vast and powerful and malevolent that it sears his very soul. He screams as he feels control slipping away from him, as he feels Lucifer touch his mind, pulling out memories and mannerisms, using them to convince Dean to let him walk towards the portal on his own. Then, he feels the Devil take full control, and he can do nothing but weep and rage in terror and frustration. He gets one last glimpse of his brother as Lucifer turns around to gloat, sees the horror in Dean’s eyes as he realizes that they’ve lost, then everything goes black.

But that doesn’t stop Sam from fighting. Lucifer hasn’t destroyed him yet; his mind and his soul are still intact. He keeps scratching and clawing and screaming into the darkness, fighting the whispered words of “stop, sleep, rest” reverberating through his brain. After a small eternity of unrelenting resistance, the murmured words finally go away, and a stronger, more powerful voice replaces them.

“Sam,” Lucifer says, sounding almost paternal. “Come on. I can feel you scratching away in there.” Light pierces the darkness, and suddenly he can see again. He is staring at a freakishly distorted image of a face; it takes him a minute to realize that he is looking at his own face in a cracked mirror, and that he doesn’t recognize himself because he is not currently the one in control of his expression. “Look…” Lucifer says with a benevolent smile that makes Sam shudder. “I’ll take the gag off, okay? You got me all wrong, kiddo. I’m not the bad guy here.”

“I’m gonna rip you apart from the inside out,” Sam growls, mildly surprised to see the words coming out of his own mouth in the reflection in the mirror, but not letting that slow him down. “Do you understand me?”

“Such anger… young Skywalker.” Sam shrieks in rage and pain as he feels Lucifer inside his mind again, peeling memories like strips of skin from the surface of his brain. “Who are you really angry with? Me? Or the face in the mirror?”

He will not give an inch, just like Bobby told him. As long as he is fighting, there is still a chance to stop this before the whole world burns. Lucifer’s power lies in words, so maybe his weakness is there as well. Maybe, if Sam can just keep him talking, he can find a way to regain control. So instead of screaming denials out into the void, he takes a page from his brother’s book. “I’m sure this is all a big joke to you, huh?”

“Not at all,” Lucifer says, sounding almost sincere. “I’ve been waiting for you… for a long, long time.” Sam’s denial is knee-jerk, and Lucifer almost laughs. “Come on, Sam. You have to admit—you can feel it, right?”

“What?”

“The exhilaration. And you know why that is? Because we’re two halves made whole. M.F.E.O. Literally.”

“This feels pretty damn far from good,” Sam spits out, though he’s not being entirely honest. He can feel it, at the back of his mind. Lucifer isn’t lying; if he gives in, if he lets the Devil consume all he is, it will feel amazing, and powerful, and everything part of him has ever wanted. Maybe it’s the demon blood talking; he doesn’t know. But he has to deny it, for as long as he can.

There’s no hiding his thoughts from Lucifer any more, though. “I’m inside your grapefruit, Sam,” he says, tapping his forehead with a smirk. “You can’t lie to me. I see it all: how odd you always felt, how… out of place in that… family of yours.” Sam cringes as his memories are plumbed by questing tendrils of fire again, but he can’t deny anything the Devil is saying. “And why shouldn’t you have? They were foster care, at best. I’m your real family.”

But there is a spark of memory Sam won’t let go of; a pair of laughing green eyes, a freckled face with a ready smile, a big brother so brave and strong that Sam had always looked up to him, even when he grew up taller. “No, that’s not true,” Sam snaps back, unrelenting. He won’t let the Devil take his family from him; Lucifer doesn’t even know the meaning of the word.

But Sam’s defiance doesn’t stop the Devil from trying. “It is,” he replies with utter calm. “And I know you know it. All those times you ran away, you weren’t running from them. You were running towards me.” Sam thinks of his and Dean’s trip to Heaven at those words, and wonders how much influence the fallen angel had had over what he’d seen there. And, as if he knows what Sam is thinking—which he probably does, Sam can’t deny—Lucifer sighs and gives him a sympathetic look. “This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, you know. I let Dean live, didn’t I? I want him to live. I’ll bring your folks back, too. I want you to be happy, Sam.”

It is everything he had asked for when trying to convince Lucifer that his willingness to say ‘Yes’ wasn’t a trap, but it wasn’t anything he really wanted. Not if it meant this. “I don’t want anything from you!” Sam shouts. He’s sick of this game, he’s sick of trying to fight this with words and manipulation. He’s fighting the master on his own battleground and he has no chance; he’d rather go back to clawing at his own skull in the darkness than look into that unrecognizable face any more.

“Really? Not even a little payback?”

The question stops Sam cold. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Lucifer turns away from the mirror, and Sam can see five figures standing motionless in the room behind him. He knows with certainty that they are demons, though he can’t see their eyes; their blood sings to him. “Look closely,” Lucifer says. “None of these little devils look familiar to you?”

Sam looks closer, and he goes still with horrified denial as he starts to recognize the figures in the other room. “That’s Mister Bensman… one of my grade school teachers,” he whispers.

“And that’s your friend Doug, from that time in East Lansing,” Lucifer says, picking up the thread of his thoughts, “and Rachel, your prom date.” And he recognizes the other two as one of his college professors and a close friend he had made in middle school, though he can’t recall their names at the moment. “Sam Winchester, this is your life.” Lucifer turns back towards the mirror, grinning and spreading his arms. “Azazel’s gang, watching you since you were a rugrat, jerking you around like a dog on a leash.”

The fire in his mind is his own now as Lucifer extracts his memories and replays them for him in full-color surround-sound. The things each one of those people said to him, the way they treated him, for better or for worse; each word and action was carefully designed and executed in order to drive wedges between him and his father, between him and Dean. His interactions with them had set his life along paths he would have never taken otherwise; paths that had led him straight into Lucifer’s arms, straight to this very moment. He had known, ever since finding out about the demon blood and why his mother had died, that his life was being manipulated by the yellow-eyed demon, but he had never realized before just how often, or how closely, he had been watched, and he can’t deny that it makes him very, very angry.

Lucifer’s knowing smile pierces through the haze of fury in his mind. “I know how you feel about them. Me too. So, what do you say you and I blow off a little steam?” And this time, when the world goes black, Sam is in full control. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and it feels good.

* * * * * * * * * *

Dean storms out of the empty house, jumps in his car, and speeds off down the road, his mind blank with fury and terror. It’s only when he reaches a main street and sees a crowd of people clustered around a storefront window, watching something unfolding on the news, that he remembers that there is more at stake here than just his brother. Pulling up to the curb, he stops the car, and is relieved to see that Bobby and Cas have followed him in Bobby’s van. They meet on the sidewalk and Dean tells them with a glance everything they need to know about what went down with Lucifer—not that they hadn’t figured it out already. Then, they stand with the crowd and watch the Apocalypse begin.

“Reports are flooding in,” a newscaster is saying. “A 7.6 earthquake in Portland, 8.1 in Boston, more in Hong Kong, Berlin, and Tehran.” The devastation is gut-wrenching, but Dean can’t bring himself to look away. “The U.S.G.S. has no explanation, but says to expect a six-figure death toll.”

“It’s starting,” Cas says from somewhere over Dean’s shoulder, his voice bleak and hopeless.

“Yeah, you think, genius?” Dean doesn’t mean to snap at the angel, but he can’t seem to help himself. Anger is all he has left, even if it isn’t going to do them any good.

“You don’t have to be mean,” Cas says, glaring at him.

And Cas doesn’t always have to state the obvious, but Dean doesn’t tell him so. Better to focus on finding a way to stop this, rather than wasting their time with petty bickering, so, instead, Dean asks him, “So, what do we do now?”

Cas shrugs. “I suggest we imbibe copious quantities of alcohol and wait for the inevitable blast wave.”

“Yeah, swell,” Dean says with a roll of his eyes. The last thing he needs when the world’s about to end is a fatalistic angel. “Thank you, Bukowski. I mean, how do we stop it?”

Cas turns to look at him, mild puzzlement behind the hopelessness written in every line of his face. “We don’t. Lucifer will meet Michael on the chosen field, and the battle of Armageddon begins.”

At least that makes it sound like the battle hasn’t started yet, which is a good sign in Dean’s book. “Okay, well, where’s this chosen field?”

“I don’t know.”

Cas’s increasingly useless answers are just serving to make Dean more desperate. “Well, there’s gotta be something we can do,” he almost shouts, not caring any more that they are standing in the middle of a busy sidewalk.

The next words out of the angel’s mouth make Dean want to hit him. “I’m sorry Dean. This is over.” It’s only the tears in Cas’s eyes and the completely broken expression on his face that stay his hand, but they don’t stop him from lashing out in other ways.

“You listen to me, you junkless sissy,” he growls, desperate for anything that will bring back the righteous fury that he knows his friend is capable of. “We are not giving up.” When Cas doesn’t even react to the insult, Dean turns instead to the only other person who will. “Bobby?” But Bobby is just standing there, grief-stricken and pale. “Bobby?”

“There was never much hope to begin with,” he almost whispers. “I don’t know what else to do.” And with that honest admission, Dean feels what little hope he has been able to hold onto slowly slip away, leaving nothing in its place.

* * * * * * * * * *

The darkness recedes slowly, revealing a room bathed in blood. The smell of it makes Sam’s stomach churn, until he remembers that he doesn’t have control of his stomach any more, or of any other part of his body. He wonders if he ever did, or if he ever will again. From somewhere very far away, he can hear the Devil laughing.

“So…” Lucifer whispers in his mind. “Are we having fun yet?”


	3. Chapter 3

_In between jobs, Sam and Dean would sometimes get a day—sometimes a week, if they were lucky. They’d pass the time lining their pockets. Sam used to insist on honest work, but now he hustles pool like his brother. They could go anywhere and do anything. They drove a thousand miles for an Ozzy show, two days for a Jayhawks game. And when it was clear, they’d park her in the middle of nowhere, sit on the hood, and watch the stars… for hours… without saying a word._

_It never occurred to them that, sure, maybe they never really had a roof and four walls, but they were never, in fact, homeless._

* * * * * * * * * *

Dean has one last chance, one last person he can reach out to for help. Leaving Bobby and Cas to mourn the death of the planet in front of the TV screens like everyone else, he heads back to the Impala, pulls her into a dark alley, and takes out his cellphone. He’s glad when the call he makes is picked up after only two rings, but he is not expecting the query that comes from the other end in a sultry voice. “Mistress Magda?”

“Um… no, Chuck.”

“Oh, uh, Dean!” The prophet sounds surprised. “Uh, wow. I, uh… I didn’t know you’d call.”

That has to be a first, and it reignites one small spark of hope in Dean. “Who’s Mistress Magda?” he can’t help but ask, though he’s pretty sure he already knows the answer.

“Nothing,” Chuck stammers. “She’s a… uh… a—just a, uh… a close friend.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet—real close.” Dean can’t help but smile. Trust Chuck to know how to weather the Apocalypse with absolutely no finesse whatsoever. “Whatever happened to Becky?”

“Didn’t work out. I had too much respect for her.”

“Boy, you really got a whole virgin/hooker thing going on, don’t you?”

He can hear Chuck’s embarrassment over the phone. “Okay, this can’t be why you called,” he says in an obvious plea to change the subject.

Dean doesn’t really want to talk about why he called, but every second wasted brings them one step closer to not being able to turn this train around. “Sam said yes.”

“I know,” Chuck says, and Dean could almost thank him for the sympathy in his voice. “I saw it. I’m just working on the pages.”

Dean crosses his fingers and almost holds his breath. “Did you see where the title fight goes down?”

“The angels are keeping it top secret—very hush-hush…”

“Aw, crap,” Dean breathes out.

“… But I saw it anyway.” There is a grin in Chuck’s voice. “Perks of being a prophet. It’s tomorrow, high noon—place called Stull Cemetery.”

Why does that sound familiar? “Stull Ceme…” Suddenly it clicks. “Wait, I know that. That’s… that’s an old boneyard outside of Lawrence.” He’s going home. Again. “Why Lawrence?”

“I don’t know,” Chuck says. “It all has to end where it started, I guess.”

Literary symmetry, Dean thinks, and grinds his teeth. “All right, Chuck. You know of any way to short-circuit this thing?”

“Besides the rings? No. I’m sorry.”

It was worth a shot, and so’s Dean’s last question. “Well, do you have any idea what’s going to happen next?”

Chuck’s sigh is deep and unencouraging. “I wish that I did, but I just… I honestly don’t know yet.”

That could be a good thing, though. If the prophet doesn’t know what’s about to happen, it could be that it hasn’t been decided yet. There could still be a chance to change things. “All right. Thanks, Chuck.” He wants to say more, but Chuck will know that soon enough, so it doesn’t really need to be said anyway. He hangs up the phone and starts preparing to go back to Lawrence, back to where this all started.

He’s just finished loading up the trunk when Cas and Bobby come around the corner into the alley. He sees them, but doesn’t bother to say anything. It’s Bobby who breaks the silence. “You goin’ someplace?” When Dean just looks at him, he supplies the answer for himself. “You’re goin’ to do somethin’ stupid. You got that look.”

Dean glares at the older man. “I’m gonna go talk to Sam.”

Bobby shakes his head. “You just don’t give up.”

Dean is getting real tired of his friends’ fatalism. “It’s Sam!” If anyone can understand that, it’s Bobby.

But Bobby just looks away, and it’s Cas who says what they’re both obviously thinking. “If you couldn’t reach him here, you’re certainly not gonna be able to on the battlefield.”

“Well, if we’ve already lost, I guess I got nothin’ to lose, right?” He’s done with them both. He’s done with everything. If he can’t save Sam, if he can’t stop this, none of it matters anyway.

“I just want you to understand,” Cas says, with more compassion than Dean has ever heard in his voice before. “The only thing that you’re gonna see out there is Michael killing your brother.”

“Well, then I ain’t gonna let him die alone.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Just before high noon on the chosen battlefield, two brothers meet under a slate-grey sky.

“It’s good to see you, Michael,” Lucifer says when his brother arrives. Michael’s vessel is small, young, and ill-fitting, and Lucifer silently curses the eldest Winchester’s stubbornness for ruining what was supposed to be the perfect symmetry of this final battle, but he can see past the suit of meat and bone to the angel inside, and he is being sincere; it is good to see his elder brother again after so long, despite the circumstances.

“You too,” Michael says, sounding equally sincere. “It’s been too long.”

“Can you believe it’s finally here?”

“No, not really.” Michael strides forward, looks his brother up and down. “You ready?”

Lucifer hesitates a moment before speaking, driving the screaming soul of Sam Winchester, who had been roused by the brief passing thought of his brother, back into the silence of the void. “As I’ll ever be,” he finally agrees.

“A part of me wishes we didn’t have to do this,” he adds as an afterthought. It is also a first strike, though; his greatest weapons have always been words, after all.

And Michael, as expected, takes the bait. “Yeah, me too.”

“Then why are we?”

“Oh, you know why,” Michael responds with a condescending stare. “I have no choice, after what you did.”

“What I did?” Lucifer sounds hurt, but inside he is crowing his triumph. “What if it’s not my fault?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Think about it.” This is the moment he’s been rehearsing for during an eternity of solitude. “Dad made everything. Which means he made me who I am! God wanted the Devil.”

“So?”

“So… why? And why make us fight? I just can’t figure out the point.”

“What’s your point?” Michael asks, sounding almost bored. It appears that he has been observing humanity more closely than Lucifer had expected him too, because these arguments are neither surprising nor convincing him.

Time for a bit of logic borrowed straight from the Winchesters. “We’re going to kill each other. And for what? One of Dad’s tests? And we don’t even know the answer. We’re brothers. Let’s just walk off the chess board.”

To his surprise and satisfaction, Michael appears to consider this request for a moment. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” he finally says, as Lucifer knew he would. “I’m a good son, and I have my orders.”

He has revealed a chink in his armor, and Lucifer presses his advantage. “But you don’t have to follow them.”

“What, you think I’m gonna rebel? Now? I’m not like you.”

“Please, Michael…”

“You know, you haven’t changed a bit, little brother,” Michael cuts him off angrily. “Always blaming everybody but yourself. We were together. We were happy. But you betrayed me—all of us—and you made our father leave.”

The words sting, and Lucifer feels Sam whimpering in the back of his mind as they cut the human deeper than they do him. “No one makes Dad do anything,” he reminds Michael, sounding a bit more personal than he wants to thanks to his distraction. “He is doing this to us.”

There is a long silence after this declaration as the two brothers size each other up. Michael breaks it first, as Lucifer knew he would. “You’re a monster, Lucifer. And I have to kill you.”

Lucifer suppresses a smirk of triumph and tries to look resigned. “If that’s the way it’s got to be… then I’d like to see you try.” He has drawn first blood, though Michael doesn’t know it yet, and as they start to circle each other, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, he knows that he is going to win this fight.

Then, the silent anticipation of the battlefield is broken by the rumble of an engine. Both brothers turn in confusion and watch as a black 1967 Chevy Impala pulls into the graveyard and rumbles towards them, sound system blaring. It rolls to a stop right in front of them, and Dean Winchester steps out, his expression calm and just a little bit cocky, despite the fact that he has just stepped into a war zone.

“Howdy, boys. Sorry, am I interrupting something?”


	4. Chapter 4

Dean thinks that ‘Rock Of Ages’ was an inspired choice for making an entrance. Its powerful intro is impossible to ignore, and it complements the growl of his baby’s engine nicely as she rolls into the old cemetery. He tries to ignore the fact that his heart skips a beat when he steps out of the car and finds himself facing two extremely pissed-off archangels. This is undoubtedly the stupidest thing he’s ever done, but he’s past caring. He’s already lost his brother, and if he doesn’t stop this thing from going down, the world’s going to end anyway, so what has he got to lose?

“Hey,” he says casually as he looks over at Sam. “We need to talk.”

“Dean.” As soon as his name comes out of his brother’s mouth, Dean is given a jolting reminder that it isn’t his brother in that body any more. “Even for you,” the Devil sneers, “this is a whole new level of stupid.”

But Dean knows that Sam has to be in there somewhere, and if Sam is there, he won’t have stopped fighting. Not when the world is at stake. “I’m not talking to you,” he says to Lucifer’s face, and is amazed when his voice doesn’t waver. “I’m talking to Sam.”

“You’re no longer the vessel, Dean. You got no right to be here.”

That comes from Adam, and when Dean looks over at the half-brother that he never got a chance to know, he feels an unexpected stab of grief. That should be him standing there right now, not Adam. He wishes there was something he could have done to protect his youngest brother from all of this, but Adam’s fate was sealed as soon as he was born. He was a Winchester, after all… or, at least, enough of him was to matter. “Adam, if you’re in there somewhere, I am so sorry.”

“Adam isn’t home right now,” Michael says coldly.

Dean hopes that the archangel is telling the truth, hopes that Michael kept Zachariah’s promise and sent Adam’s soul back to Heaven to be with his mother. He doubts it, but the spark is enough to help him regain his footing. “Well, then you’re next on my list, buttercup,” he says dismissively to Michael, “but right now, I need five minutes with him.” He looks back at Lucifer.

“You little maggot,” Michael growls, advancing on Dean. “You are no longer a part of this story!”

“Hey! Ass-butt!”

Dean and the angels all turn to see Cas and Bobby standing on the other side of the Impala. Before anyone can react, Cas hurls a flaming bottle straight at Michael. It breaks on his chest, and suddenly he is engulfed in flames. Screaming in agony, he disappears.

“Ass-butt?” Dean asks as he turns back to Cas.

Castiel shrugs. “He’ll be back—and upset—but you’ve got your five minutes.”

Dean grins, glad to see that his friend has finally found his backbone again, but before he can thank Cas for his bravery, Lucifer turns his attention on the angel. “Castiel,” he asks in a cold, dangerous voice. “Did you just Molotov my brother with holy fire?”

Cas puts up his hands in a gesture of surrender and takes a step back in the face of the Devil’s fury. “Uh… no,” he denies unconvincingly.

“No one dicks with Michael but me,” Lucifer says. He snaps his fingers, and Castiel explodes.

Dean is stunned speechless as he watches the remains of his friend rain down on the grass. Cas is not the first friend he has lost to this fight, though, and he won’t be the last if Dean doesn’t find a way to end this now. “Sammy, can you hear me?” he asks, hoping that some part of his brother, rebelling against what Lucifer has just done, will be able to break through.

It isn’t Sam who turns to look at him, though. “You know,” Lucifer says, advancing on Dean now. “I tried to be nice, for Sammy’s sake. But you… are such a pain in my ass.” He grabs Dean by the lapels of his jacket, and before Dean can even raise a hand in his own defense, he finds himself flying through the air. He slams against the Impala’s windshield and hears glass break underneath him. His head is spinning, and he is seeing stars.

Through a haze of agony, he sees Lucifer stalking towards the car, then there is the ring of a gunshot. Lucifer stops and turns, and Dean struggles upright just enough to see Bobby, still standing next to where Cas had died, pointing a pistol at the Devil’s heart. He squeezes off another shot, which flies straight and true and hits Lucifer square in the chest. The Devil looks down at the hole it leaves, then back at Bobby. Bobby gives Dean an apologetic shrug, then collapses as Lucifer, with nothing more than a wave of his hand, snaps the older man’s neck.

“NO!” The scream is ripped involuntarily from Dean’s throat as he watches the man he thinks of as a father die.

“Yes.” Then Lucifer is there, dragging Dean off the Impala’s hood by his leg. Dean braces himself for the next blow, but he doesn’t stand a chance against the power of an archangel. The Devil’s fist to his jaw isn’t quite hard enough to break anything, but it spins him around, and he spits up blood as he catches himself on the hood of the car.

There is no point in fighting back. Blows won’t help Sam regain control of his body; only words will. “Sammy?” Dean asks as he turns back and looks up at the thing wearing his brother’s face. “Are you in there?”

“Oh, he’s in here all right.” Lucifer’s next blow catches Dean across the nose. He feels something break, and his eyes start to water in pain. “And he’s going to feel the snap of your bones!” The next blow, this one to the side of his head, knocks him down. “Every single one.” Lucifer grabs him by his jacket again and hauls him to his feet, throwing him against the side of the Impala. “We’re gonna take our time.” Then the blows start to rain down, hard and fast, to his face, his chest, his stomach…

He feels bones breaking, and blood flowing. The world is going fuzzy around the edges, and the pain is almost too much to bear, but he won’t give up on his brother, not until his last breath. Somehow, he manages to grab an arm as it swings down to deliver another blow, giving him just enough respite to force what he is sure will be his final words out through broken teeth and bleeding lips. “Sam, it’s okay,” he says, reassuring the little brother that he knows is watching all of this from somewhere behind those ice-cold eyes. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not gonna leave you.” He forces himself to look into his brother’s eyes, even as Lucifer brings another blow down across his face. “I’m not gonna leave you.” He sees Lucifer raising his fist, feels the power coursing through his brother’s body, and he knows that all the Devil’s angelic fury is about to be unleashed. He’s failed, and though he knows it’s nothing he deserves, he hopes that his death will come quickly.

And then, everything stops.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sam has been cowering in the darkness, screaming, for what feels like an eternity. He doesn’t know where he is now, or what Lucifer is doing with his body. After letting Sam watch while he took out eons worth of rage on the demons inhabiting the bodies of people Sam used to know, he had pushed Sam’s soul back into the darkness. Sam fought as hard as he was able, but there was nothing to fight against there, and nothing to hold onto either. Exhaustion and despair threaten to overwhelm him; the only thing keeping him from losing himself completely to the Devil’s will is the thought that his brother is still out there somewhere, trying to find a way to stop all of this from happening.

As if thinking about him is enough to conjure him from thin air, Sam suddenly catches Lucifer thinking about Dean. It is nothing more than a pinpoint of light in the absolute blackness surrounding him, but it is enough. He follows it, and surfaces just long enough to catch a glimpse of his younger brother, Adam, facing down Lucifer in what appears to be an abandoned cemetery under a slate-grey sky. It’s not Adam any more, though; through Lucifer’s eyes, Sam can see the power of the first and greatest of the archangels, Michael, underneath the skin of the body that used to be his half-brother’s. It’s almost blinding, and when Sam lets his tenuous control of the situation slip briefly at the sight, Lucifer rises up and brutally beats him back down into the darkness.

He is not quite as far down this time, though. Though he can no longer hear through his ears or see through his eyes, he can sense what Lucifer is thinking. There is no pain yet, no signs that the battle has started, just a roiling cloud of conflicting emotions: anger, sorrow, happiness, fear, determination. Whatever Michael and Lucifer are saying to one another, it is causing the Devil both great joy and great distress. Then, everything goes still, and Sam can feel the angel’s power building all around him. He closes his eyes and braces himself for the end.

The moment is broken by a rumble so deep and familiar that he can feel it in his very soul. It is the sound of the Impala’s engine, coupled with a driving bass beat that can only come from Dean having the music turned up too loud. With a triumphant shout of his own, Sam surges forward through this new crack in the Devil’s armor. Suddenly, he can see again. Dean is standing there next to the car, talking to Lucifer as if coming face-to-face with the Devil on the day of the Apocalypse is a commonplace occurrence. Sam can’t hear what his brother is saying, but he can tell that is is making Lucifer very angry, and Michael too. “Dean!” Sam screams in desperation as he watches Michael advance on his brother, preparing to unleash righteous wrath, but Dean can’t hear him.

Then, suddenly, Michael goes up in flames, screaming, and disappears. The shock and fury Lucifer experiences at this sudden turn of events reverberates through Sam’s entire body, and as he watches, helpless, Lucifer turns on Cas, who was the one responsible for the holy fire Molotov cocktail, and smites him without a second thought. “No!” Sam screams as he watches the angel vanish in a mist of blood and bone. Cas was Dean’s only hope of surviving this, and as Sam watches Lucifer turn his attention back to his brother, he is certain that he is about to see Dean’s death at his own hands.

He grapples with Lucifer in earnest inside his mind now, though the Devil is effortlessly holding him back even while diverting most of his attention to beating Dean into a bloody pulp. Sam feels, but doesn’t hear the two gunshots that penetrate his body, and he almost loses everything when he feels the Devil’s power snap Bobby’s neck, leaving Dean alone, both on the battlefield and in the world. Then, as if wanting to torture Sam even further, Lucifer pulls his soul just close enough to the surface of his body that he can hear and see and feel everything, but not control any of it. Screaming, crying, and raging, Sam is rendered helpless as the Devil uses his hands to beat his brother to death, even as Dean gasps out, “Sam, it’s okay. I’m here. I’m not gonna leave you.”

Sam feels Lucifer rear back, draw up a fist, and channel all his power into it as he prepares to deliver the final blow. As he does so, though, Sam catches his reflection in the window of the Impala and, with the focusing of Lucifer’s power, manages to gain some small control of his body again. His eyes look past the reflection and into the car, where he sees a little green plastic army man stuck in one of the ashtrays. He remembers that army man; it was one of a set that had once been Dean’s. He remembers getting it stuck in there when they were playing with them on a long drive from some grimy hotel in a small town to another grimy hotel in another small town. He remembers begging Dean to leave it there, remembers believing that it would watch over them and protect them on nights when they had to sleep in the back seat. All the other army men from the set are long since lost; left behind at hotels and schools and playgrounds, devoured by time and a life spent on the road, but that one remains, standing sentinel over the only place that Sam and Dean have ever really been able to call home.

And then, as if a dam has broken inside his mind, he finds other memories flooding through him. Memories of a childhood spent never standing still, carrying everything he owned on a bag next to him in the back seat of that car, carving his initials into the floorboards alongside Dean and hiding the evidence from Dad, listening to the rattle of the Legos that Dean had dropped down the car’s vent every time the heat came on. Then there are the more recent memories, of falling asleep in the passenger seat to the sound of Zeppelin playing low and soft over the radio in the dark, waking up with aching knees and a “Morning, sunshine” from a brother who drank three more cups of coffee rather than wake him up and ask him to drive, of late nights spent drinking under the stars in silence, of prank wars that went on for days, of arguments about the music, about the job, about football teams and baseball stats and movies and TV shows and books and everything else under the sun, of days spent not being able to stand the sight of one another and nights spent laughing in triumph as they drove away from one more ghost salted and burned, one more monster vanquished, one more innocent life saved.

Everything Sam loves about his life, his brother, and the world they live in comes roaring into his soul like a tidal wave. He is unable to contain it all, and he feels Lucifer screaming and writhing in agony under the assault of pure human emotion. It’s the window of opportunity he has been looking for. He uses those memories and emotions as a weapon, beating Lucifer down, down, down into the darkness that he himself had almost succumbed to, and when he finally returns to the surface, alone, he has full control once again. He can feel Lucifer in the back of his mind, though, hear him screaming and raging, and he knows he doesn’t have long. The Devil is stronger than him; he will take control again eventually. As long as it happens back in the Cage, though, Sam doesn’t care.

He drops the fist that had been raised over his brother’s head and looks down into Dean’s broken, battered face. “It’s okay, Dean” he stammers out against the effort of holding Lucifer at bay. “It’s gonna be okay. I’ve got him.”

He stumbles away from Dean, and when his brother slumps to the ground in obvious agony, he almost goes back, but even that momentary distraction almost costs him control over his body. Fighting against his desire to help his brother is more difficult than keeping Lucifer pinned down, but there isn’t time, and the look Dean is giving him says they both know it. Sam can feel the rings in his pocket; he pulls them out, throws them to the ground a few feet away, and says the incantation. His heart freezes in terror and his body follows as a gaping chasm into blackness opens in front of him, but he forces his feet to move forward until he is standing at the very edge of the pit. Taking one last look back at his brother, he silently says goodbye, then braces himself and prepares to jump.

“Sam!” a voice shouts over the howling wind. Sam turns around to see that Adam—Michael—has returned. “It’s not going to end this way! Step back!”

“You’re gonna have to make me!” Sam shouts in return. Lucifer has redoubled his efforts at regaining control in the wake of his brother’s return; he can’t afford this distraction now. He’s too close to ending it all.

“I have to fight my brother, Sam,” Michael says. “Here and now. It’s my destiny!”

Sam looks over at Dean again, remembering exactly what he thinks about the idea of destiny. He wants to believe in free will, like his brother does, but in a moment of doubt, he can’t help but think of all the actions that they took towards subverting destiny, and somehow they still managed to end up here. Maybe it has all been destiny. If so, though, who’s to say that Michael knows what that destiny really is? Dean thwarted Michael’s idea of his destiny once already by not agreeing to be his vessel, after all. And then there’s the fact that Sam is the one in control now, standing on the edge of the pit, and it isn’t like God has been stepping in to stop them from making the choices that led them here in the first place. So… screw what Michael thinks is supposed to happen. Sam is the one in control of what happens next, and he chooses to let the world, and humanity survive. Dean nods, seeing his decision written all over his face, and with that one last show of support, Sam closes his eyes, spreads his arms, and falls backwards towards the gaping chasm that will lead him to the Cage.

A hand on his jacket, pulling him away from the edge, distracts him, and he opens his eyes to see Michael trying to stop him. Without thinking, he grabs the younger man by the arm and knocks him off his feet. Stumbling and off-balance, they both fall headfirst into the pit. Sam feels the wind howling around him, catches one last glimpse of the sun and one last breath of fresh air as he tumbles into the void, then the darkness closes around him and everything goes still.


	5. Chapter 5

_Endings are hard._

_Any chapped-ass monkey with a keyboard can poop out a beginning, but endings are impossible. You try to tie up every loose end, but you never can. The fans are always gonna bitch. There’s always gonna be holes. And, since it’s the ending, it’s all supposed to add up to something. I’m telling you, they’re a raging pain in the ass._

* * * * * * * * * *

Dean is kneeling on the ground where the portal had been only moments before, thinking of nothing but that last image of his brother, his face so full of certainty and peace even as he threw himself willingly into the worst Hell that Dean can imagine. A tear rolls down his face from one of his swollen eyes; he doesn’t know if it is made of water or blood. He would reach up and try to wipe it away, but his arm is broken, as are most of his ribs. He’s in an unimaginable amount of pain, and having trouble breathing, and he doesn’t think he’s going to last much longer, but that’s okay. The Apocalypse has been averted, and with Cas, Bobby, and Sam all gone, it’s not like he has a reason to live any more.

He doesn’t know what it is that causes him to look up, but when he raises his head, he finds himself looking into Cas’s face. “Cas? You’re alive?”

“I’m better than that,” the angel says, and before Dean can stop him, Cas has put two fingers to his forehead. There is a rush of sensation through his body, and then all the pain is gone. He knows without even having to look down at himself that he is completely healed. Even the blood on his clothes is gone. He thinks he should be happy about this, but he isn’t. Just… confused, and suddenly hopeful. Heart hammering in his chest, he gets to his feet and looks at his friend.

“Cas, are you God?”

Cas’s faint smile shatters all Dean’s hopes like the spun glass they were made of. “That’s a nice compliment, but no. Although, I do believe He bought me back.”

Cas doesn’t know what he’s done, and Dean isn’t about to enlighten him, not when the angel looks so full of purpose once again. He watches, stone-faced, as Cas goes over to Bobby’s body and revives him with a touch. It’s all very well for Cas, to be so favored by God that He decides to bring him back from being smote by an archangel not once, but twice, and for Dean and Bobby as well, to be saved by extension, but what about Sam? What about the man who stopped the fucking Apocalypse, who is probably even now being tortured by both Michael and Lucifer in the Cage, and who will suffer for all eternity for saving the world? Why doesn’t he get to be saved?

Dean looks down at the rings in his hand. He could open the Cage again, as easy as that, and find a way to get his brother out, or at least jump in there with Sam, and screw the risk of letting Michael and Lucifer free again. But he won’t. Because he made a promise. One last promise, to Sam, and he will keep it even if it kills him.

* * * * * * * * * *

Later that night, as they’re driving back to Bobby’s, Dean finally breaks his self-imposed silence. “What are you gonna do now?” he asks Cas, figuring that if the angel has some sort of divine blessing, God must have had a reason for bringing him back.

“Return to Heaven, I suppose,” the angel says simply.

“Heaven?” This is the first time Dean has seen the angel give a rat’s ass about Heaven. Wouldn’t his powers be put to better use here on Earth, where people are still suffering the effects of the barely-averted end of the world?

“With Michael in the Cage, I’m sure it’s total anarchy up there,” Cas explains.

“So, what, you’re the new sheriff in town?”

It’s meant to be a joke, but, Cas being Cas, he takes it literally. “I like that,” he says with a smile. “Yeah, I suppose I am.”

Dean wants to yell as Cas, but it would be like kicking a puppy. It never does any good, and it just makes him feel like an asshole. That doesn’t stop him from laying the sarcasm on thick, though. “Wow. God gives you a brand-new, shiny set of wings, and suddenly you’re his bitch again.”

Cas has at least spent enough time around Dean to pick up on his tone of voice, and he looks hurt. “I don’t know what God wants,” he explains defensively. “I don’t know if He’ll even return. It just… seems like the right thing to do.”

The right thing for who, Dean wonders but doesn’t say. Instead, he spits out, “Well, if you do see Him, tell Him I’m coming for Him next.”

“You’re angry.” Cas looks taken aback.

“That’s an understatement.”

“He helped,” Cas says with certainty, which makes Dean even more furious. “Maybe more than we realize.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Dean shoots back. “He brought you back. But what about Sam? What about me, huh? Where’s my grand prize? All I got is my brother in a hole!”

“You got what you asked for, Dean.” Cas is so matter-of-fact about it that if Dean wasn’t driving, he would punch him just on principle. “No Paradise, no Hell… just more of the same.” They share a look. “I mean it, Dean. What would you rather have? Peace? Or freedom?”

Damn the feathered asshole for being right. Dean’s anger deflates a little, but when he looks back to tell Cas that he’s sorry, the angel is gone. “Well, you really suck at goodbyes, you know that?” he says to the empty car. Then, he turns up the music as loud as he can stand, pushes down hard on the accelerator, and tries not to think about the fact that no one will ever sit in that passenger seat again.

Back at Bobby’s house, Dean fixes the Impala’s windshield, buffs out the scrapes and dents she sustained in the fight, and gives her a full tune-up. They’re both grieving, but, Bobby being Bobby, he doesn’t force Dean to talk about any of it, and he doesn’t say anything as he helps him pack up the car, even though he knows this is goodbye. Because this is the last that Dean and Bobby will see of each other for a very long time. And, for the record, at this point next week, Bobby will be hunting a rugaru outside of Dayton. But not Dean.

Dean didn’t want Cas to save him. Every part of him, every fiber he’s got, wants to die, or find a way to bring Sam back. But he isn’t going to do either. Because he made a promise. When he knocks on Lisa’s door, he almost hopes that no one will be home, but she answers, and he knows there is no turning back.

“Hey, Lisa.” His voice cracks when he sees her smile.

“Oh, thank God,” she breathes, and though he can’t agree with the sentiment, he is glad that she is glad that he’s okay. “Are you all right?”

He shakes his head, but can’t bring himself to speak the truth. “Yeah,” he finally stammers out. “Uh… if it’s not too late, I… I think I’d like to take you up on that beer.”

“It’s never too late.” He doesn’t know how, but he’s sure she knows exactly what he’s thinking, as if she can see straight into his soul and the hole that has been left there. Instead of simply stepping back and inviting him in, she holds out her arms and takes him in a hug.

“Shh, it’s okay, Dean. It’s gonna be okay.”

He closes his eyes to hold back tears as he buries his face in her shoulder. He isn’t home, not yet, and he hasn’t found any sort of peace with himself or with the fact that Sam is gone, but maybe, just maybe, he’s found a place to start.

* * * * * * * * * *

_So what’s it all add up to? It’s hard to say. But me, I’d say this was a test… for Sam and Dean. And I think they did all right. Up against good, evil, angels, devils, destiny, and God Himself, they made their own choice. They chose family. And, well… isn’t that kind of the whole point?_

_No doubt—endings are hard. But then again… nothing ever really ends, does it?_

THE END


End file.
